We are not quite sure what category Scientific America's Karen Stollznow. Ms. Stollznow has Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of New England and seems to be critical of Scott Nelson's credentials. To catch you up, Scott Nelson retired from the Navy after a 17-year career as a crypto-linguist, intercepting Russian communications and decoding them. While his son was listening to the Morehead and Berry Bigfoot audio recordings (a/k/a Sierra Sounds) he detected patterns and perhaps even language.

After Karen introduces the general public on types of Sasquatch evidence she dives right into the possibility of Bigfoot language and the Morehead/Berry Tapes:

A fascinating category of evidence involves claims of a Bigfoot language. Eyewitnesses report hearing howls, whoops, growls, screams, mumbles, whistles and other strange vocalizations in the wild, and attribute these to Bigfoot. Variant forms of Bigfoot are found across cultures, and the Sasquatch, Himalayan Yeti, Australian Yowie and other alleged creatures are similarly believed to produce vocalizations. Other Bigfoot communication includes the mimicry of wildlife and forest sounds, wood-knocking, rock-knocking and rock-throwing. Bigfoot is also thought to form patterns with sticks and rocks as a kind of writing system. In wilder claims about wild men, Bigfoot are believed to have the ability to communicate telepathically, and use their large feet to send infra-sound communication over long distances. Bigfoot are also claimed to speak and understand human languages, and to have their own Bigfoot language.

There is little evidence to support these claims, other than the anecdotal kind. The Sierra Sound recordings, also known as the Berry/Morehead tapes, are touted as the gold-standard of evidence for a Bigfoot language. During a number of expeditions to the Sierra Nevada Mountains between the years 1972-1975, Alan Berry, Ronald Morehead and their crew captured audio recordings of alleged Bigfoot encounters. They recorded a total of 90 minutes of Bigfoot language and vocalizations using a microphone dangled from a tree branch attached to a reel-to-reel recorder. Over the years they also found 18-inch footprints of Bigfoot, and experienced many sightings…just not during the recordings!

Morehead and Berry (until his death in 2012) staunchly deny that the recordings are a prank. However, for a number of reasons, it is highly probable that the recordings are a hoax, or that the crew were hoaxed. The expeditions were undertaken specifically to hunt for Bigfoot. “Bigfoot” was heard but never seen when the recordings were made. It is obvious that other animals made some of the sounds, such as bears. The wood knocks are easy to re-create, while the “language” itself is unconvincing. The vocalizations are an amateur impression of how a proto-language might sound if it evolved from non-human primates. This “Bigfoot” is likely human, and the Sierra Sounds a combination of hoax and misidentification, like all of the other evidence for Bigfoot.

Sounds like she has already reached a conclusion. What is unfortunate is we were hoping her critique would come more from a linguist perspective, but her conclusion, as you will read below, is that looking into Bigfoot language is putting the cart before the horse. She thinks we should be looking for a body first. Not only is this a disappointment, because it would have been great to get another linguist's perspective, but it also a flawed argument. If this was the prevailing logic we would have never tried to decipher the cuneiform text left on clay tablets by the Sumerians.

Here is her non-linguistic based argument:

Self –proclaimed “Bigfoot language expert” R. Scott Nelson has taken the Bigfoot language claims one-step further. As though it is the Linear B of Bigfoot language to be deciphered, Nelson has created a transcription of the Sierra Sound Recordings. He is a retired U.S. Navy Cryptologic Technician Interpreter who speaks Russian, Spanish and Persian. He also believes he can speak “Bigfoot”.

Nelson claims he has identified not only vocalizations such as whistles, grunts, and snarls, but also individual phonemes, i.e., the sounds that combine to create words. Nelson has created a pronunciation key for these phonemes, and he uses the Latin alphabet, diacritics and various other symbols to represent these sounds. He calls this the Sasquatch Phonetic Alphabet (SPA), or the Unclassified Hominid Phonetic Alphabet (UHPA). It is unclear why he doesn’t use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.

Bilingualism (speaking two or more languages) and working as a translator doesn’t qualify someone to identify or describe undocumented languages. This is an area of anthropological linguistics, although it appears as if many cryptozoological fans confuse “crypto-linguistics” as a field that researches the language of cryptids. The Sierra Sounds are used not only to support the claim of a Bigfoot language, but also to legitimize claims of Bigfoot’s existence. As Nelson argues, “The existence of the Sasquatch Being is hereby assumed, since any creature must exist before his language.” However, there are still prior questions. Does Bigfoot exist, and if so, could Bigfoot speak?

For arguments sake, if Bigfoot did exist, the species would likely have developed its own system of communication, like chimpanzees and Vervet monkeys. Similar to the claims of the (so far mythical) Orang-Pendek, Bigfoot would probably communicate using vocalizations. However, non-human primates don’t have the physiology to produce a wide variety of speech sounds, so it is unlikely that Bigfoot would have developed language, or would be able to speak existing human languages. At any rate, this is all starting off on the wrong (Big)foot. There is no solid physical evidence to support the existence of Bigfoot. Before we establish the existence of Bigfoot language, we would need to establish the existence of Bigfoot.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

In a segment in Kansas city local news affiliate titled Faces of Kansas City, Scott Nelson is featured for his research on Bigfoot language. We have been covering Scott Nelson for two years, ever since he was a speaker at the first annual Oregon Sasquatch Symposium. Click the following link to read our entire Scott Nelson coverage.

LEXINGTON, MO (KCTV) -
One man said he now believes Bigfoot or Sasquatch is roaming remote areas of the United States, including an area in Missouri not that far from Kansas City.

What Scott Nelson hears in his headphones is strange, disturbing and unexplainable.

"Yes, I've heard him speak. And you will hear him speak here in a moment," Nelson said when asked if he thinks Bigfoot exists.

Nelson retired from the Navy after a 17-year career as a crypto-linguist, intercepting Russian communications and decoding them. Currently, he is a professor at Wentworth College in Missouri.

"Because of what I did in the Navy, spending years and several thousand hours speeding the human voice up and slowing it down, I could just detect language in those vocalizations," he said.

The vocalizations were captured on audiotape in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains by a group of hunters in the early 70s. Nelson came across them a few years ago while helping his son write a paper on Bigfoot.

"I said, 'Stevie there's language here.' He said, 'Dad, how can that be? It sounds like a bunch of apes fighting to me.' I said, 'We have to slow it down, like dad used to do in the Navy."

When that happened, Nelson said he instantly knew three things about the sounds he was hearing. No. 1, he was hearing a language; No. 2, it was not human; and No. 3, it was not fake.

It was at that point Nelson became a Bigfoot believer and researcher.

"The number of reports have increased; it's becoming more and more accepted for people to come out and say, 'I had this strange experience, it terrified me and I need to talk about it,'" he said.

In fact, Bigfoot has never been bigger. There seems to be new, amateur video of Sasquatch turning up more frequently. The most famous, of course, is the Patterson film made in 1967.

Skeptics say each and every one of the videos is fake. But Nelson said not only is Bigfoot real, he's right in our backyard.

Nelson said there have been numerous reports of Bigfoot activity up and down the Missouri River Corridor.

"There are two places in Missouri, one right here, 10 minutes away, called Monkey Mountain. Now, there's a reason pioneers called it Monkey Mountain," he said.

Nelson offered to take KCTV5's Brad Stephens to the nearby location where he said there has been a lot of Bigfoot activity and Stephens has accepted. The result of their trip will be featured in next Wednesday's Faces of Kansas City segment airing in the 10 p.m. news.

Copyright 2012 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved.

Do you have the Sasquatch Phonetic Alphabet? You can download them below!

Monday, August 9, 2010

Its Official! The Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference is set for October 22nd-23rd in lovely Atoka, Oklahoma! On the official website Mike Hall greets visitors with this message:

Hello and welcome to the 2010 Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference Homepage!The Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference is different than some of the other conferences you may have attended in the past. First and foremost the goal of the conference is to raise money for the Chilldren's Hospital Foundation and the Children's Miracle Network! The Children's Miracle Network has been around since 1983 and creates miracles by funding medical care, research and education that saves and improves the lives of 17 million children each year. By helping the Boggy Depot Bigfoot Conference you can help create miracles for children everywhere. We know the whole family will have a great time because we have something for everyone! See you soon!

There are at least 3 reasons we think this is going to be a great show.

1. Its a fundraiser for a two great causes; the Chilldren's Hospital Foundation and the Children's Miracle Network!

2. Its sponsored by two of our favorite corporations leveraging Bigfoot as an icon; The Carolina Pad Company and Jack Link's Beef Jerky.

3. Two Words; Scott Nelson.

We are HUGE fans of Scott Nelson. Scott Nelson is a Retired Navy Crypto-linguist with over 30 years of training and experiance in Foreign Language and Linguistics. This includes among other duties the collection, transcription, analysis and reporting of voice communications.

Scott Has taken it to task to study the Berry/Morehead tapes recorded in the Sierras of what is purported to be an unkown language and share his findings to the Scientific Community.

We have posted the actual phonetic alphabet developed/discovered by Scott Nelson here.

We saw him at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium and he was definitely one of the most engaging speakers. If you have heard him at any of his radio interviews, he realy shines when he has his own platform to methodically build the nearrative of how he discovered Bigfoot Language.

We should also mention two of the greatest people on earth will be there D.W . Lee and Randy Harrington from the M.A.B.R.C. (of which our resident artist, Guy Edwards is a member you can see his handy work below)

Sunday, June 20, 2010

One of the most impressive presentations at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium was R. Scott Nelson's breakdown of the sasquatch language recorded on the what is formally known as the Berry Tapes, but we all are familiar with the name Sierra Sounds.

For those who do not know Scott Nelson, Nelson worked for the Navy intelligence specializing in crypto-linquistics the science of decoding and transcribing hidden language. He specialized in Russian and Spanish. Bottom line he know his business.

For the first time during a presentation Nelson mentioned cognates. Cognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymological origin.

1. DEFINITELY NOT HUMANDue to hours of listening and beyond human abilty to make. The tempo is too fast and the conversation too quick almost twice as fast as humans

2. DEFINITELY DETECTED LANGUAGEIsolated 41 different phonemes combined to make morphemems (syllables). There were emoted sounds of intimidation and negation. Too many grammatical keys to be random.

3. TAPES/RECORDINGS NOT FAKENo deception took place. This guy was trained how to detect the latest Russian deception technology. A faked recording back in 1974 would have been easy to detect.

Exclusively at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium he handed out hard copies of a formalization of the Sasquatch Phonetic Alphabet and a Sample Transcription of the Berry Tape I. Download both documents at the link below.

Using Transcribe! An official transcription software. First and foremost a lesson on crypto linguistics, a fascinating science. Nelson explains not only the communication between Sasquatch, but specific cognates used by them like no, I, and me.

Revealed also are conversational behaviors, like verbal punctiations used by Sasquatch to indicate when they are finished speaking.

Through isolated audio loops we hear other morpemed that indicate other cognates like "food."

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

If the patterson/Gimlin film is the best video evidence we have, then the best audio is the Sierra Sounds recorded by Ron Moorehead, then translated by Scott Nelson; both speakers at the Oregon Sasquatch Symposium.

Although its on the hush hush, our sources are telling us that a break-through in deciphering the Bigfoot language will be presented exclusively at the Oregon Sasquatch symposium.

Scott Nelson is a Veteran of the U.S. Air Force, private pilot, musician, developer of a local hospitality industry, and Sasquatch researcher. He is best known for his audio evidence of indistinguishable vocalization, known as The Sierra Sounds.

Ron Moorehead a retired U.S. Navy Cryptologic Technician Interpreter (Crypto-Linguist) has logged thousands of hours of collection and transcription of voice communications.

More recently he has been teaching philosophy and languages at Wentworth College. Other courses include Russian, Persian, and Spanish languages as well as philosophy and religion.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Join us in the beautiful and cozy Willamette Valley this weekend as we kick off the first annual "OSS" Oregon Sasquatch Symposium in Eugene, Oregon. This event will be held at Lane Community College in the Forum Hall. Seating is limited, and tickets are sure to go fast once they are released.

The event was originally formed to unite Oregon researchers within the same venue to share information about what they have going on, basically in their own backyard. The Sasquatch phenomena is, of course, not only an Oregon experience, but given the history of this beautifully forested state, our Sasquatch is as much a part of our culture as the Douglas Fir trees that surround it.

The 19th of June will be a day when long-term witnesses and enthusiasts share their personal Sasquatch encounters at the OSS.

The 20th of June will be the day expert testimony takes front and center stage . Although not every attendee will be from our own Oregon backyard, we are still delighted to invite them into the shadows of our majestic forests. So far, all is looking fantastic as to the forecast for the 20th lineup. Maybe it is our little known saying that has got everyone so on board. "Oregon, will treat ya so many ways, your bound to love one of em"!

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Bigfoot Lunch Club is the best bigfoot website for Bigfoot News and research for the Sasquatch and Yeti enthusiast. Launched in 2007, BLC has provided all types of Bigfoot news; Bigfoot DNA, Bigfoot pictures, Bigfoot videos and has kept an overall pulse on Bigfoot in pop culture. We even have bigfoot tshirts! Once in a while we will even throw in some Bigfoot history. In an effort to explore the mysteries of our world and provide insights into ourselves, Bigfoot Lunch Club will leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of the truth concerning Bigfoot. We believe in truly open minds that are not afraid to question both the assumptions of science and the dogma of fanatics. Most importantly, we believe in a world bigger than the sum of our present knowledge that still holds mystery, wonder, and a place for a creature called Bigfoot.

About Guy Edwards

Guy Edwards is a Bigfoot enthusiast from Portland, Oregon. He dedicates his spare time to deliver the best bigfoot website for Bigfoot News and Bigfoot research. He has been searching for Bigfoot ever since he saw the 352nd frame of the Patterson/Gimlin film in 2nd grade. His own unique approach to Bigfoot (Sasquatch) is to champion three major disciplines; paleo-anthropology, primatology and statistical mathematics. Initially he created Bigfoot Lunch Club to be the Best Bigfoot Website for Bigfoot News and Bigfoot research. News spread and Bigfoot Lunch Club became a hit on it's own and continues to be the most respected source for Bigfoot News (we even have our own Bigfoot tshirts). You can contact Guy at feedback@BigfootLunchClub.com. Check out his other blog about Godzilla and other Kaiju at Everything Kaiju .com